Disclaimer: I don't own The Legend of Zelda or its characters and plotlines. Those are Nintendo's.
A growl sounded from deep in the cave as Link approached it. He paused and knelt, gently laying down a piece of raw meat before backing away.
After a few seconds, a canine nose poked out of the darkness of the cave, twitching as it sniffed the air. It emerged, a beautiful, mottled gray and white creature with thick fur.
But it was clearly injured, with a long gash on its side and a terrible limp. It looked like it hadn't eaten in a long time, either, its fur hanging loosely off of an emaciated body.
Even stranger, it was alone, with no sign of any other pack members nearby.
It eyed Link for a moment, but when Link didn't move, just knelt there quietly, watching, it took a few cautious steps toward the food and began to eat.
Link still didn't move until it finished eating and sat down on its haunches, looking at him.
"Hey there," Link said gently, summoning another piece of meat from his Sheikah Slate. He moved slowly and deliberately as he held it out before him. "You look like you're hurt. I can help you feel better if you want."
The wolf's eyes were glued to the food in Link's hand, and it shifted forward as if it wanted to come to him. Then it shifted backward, shaking itself.
"It's okay, I'm not going to hurt you." Link took one slow step forward but stopped when the wolf bared its teeth at him. He held out the food. "Come on…"
They stayed like that for several seconds, wolf and human staring at each other, before the wolf finally took some slow steps forward, its tail tucked. That limp really was bad. The wolf walked with its front right paw held off the ground entirely, balancing on its other three legs.
It was surprisingly gentle as it took the meat from Link. While it was eating, its body seemed to relax, its tail untucking. Link quietly summoned a hearty elixir from his Slate and moved around to the wolf's side. Its eyes followed him warily, but it didn't growl or flinch away.
Link uncorked the bottle and poured the elixir onto the gash in the wolf's side. It started to close up almost immediately. As it disappeared, the wolf stopped eating, turning its head toward Link and tilting it.
"There," Link said. "That's better, isn't it? The leg's gonna be harder to heal, but I'm not sure you trust me enough to get that close, do you?"
The wolf took a step toward him, sniffing the air. Link stayed perfectly still as the wolf smelled his arm, then looked up at him with eyes that were almost sapient. After a few seconds of eye contact, the wolf got up and limped away, disappearing into the forest.
Link sighed and shook his head. Well, it was worth a shot. He got to his feet, brushing off some dirt, and wandered in the opposite direction.
That night, as Link was setting up camp, he heard a rustle from the nearby trees and tensed, instinctively raising his hand to draw his sword as he turned in that direction.
Then he stopped as a wolf—the same gray and white wolf from before—came into the clearing. It didn't look at him, just lay down unceremoniously at the edge of the camp.
Link looked at it warily for a moment, then shrugged and returned to setting up camp. He did summon some more food for the wolf, though, and set it down carefully a few feet away from the animal. Then he crossed over to the cooking pot he'd set up and stirred his stew.
The wolf ate the food, then disappeared back into the forest again.
For the next several days, it was like that. Link would wake up in the morning and the wolf would be there, sleeping on the other side of the camp. He'd catch glimpses of it as it followed behind him on his journey, never getting too close. It'd show up at night when he was cooking dinner and he'd lay out a few pieces of meat and some water for it. It would eat and drink and then disappear.
Link kept eying its leg, wishing he could get closer and help, but it never let him get as close as it had that first day. Any time he came within two or three feet, it would tense up, bare its teeth (but not growl), and he would relent with a sigh.
The food seemed to be helping a little, anyway. The wolf was getting stronger every day, its scrawny frame filling out bit by bit.
Finally, after about a week of this, Link was sitting cross-legged by the fire after he finished cooking a simple mushroom skewer when he heard a thump at his side.
He glanced over in surprise. The wolf was lying down next to him, its fur almost touching Link's leg.
"You decided to come say hello this time?" Link asked. He didn't reach out to touch the wolf, just smiled faintly, looking over at it.
The wolf raised its head for a moment to regard him, then put it back down and closed its eyes.
When Link got up to go to bed, the wolf followed, curling up in the dirt a foot or two away from where Link slept.
The next night, the wolf did the same thing, coming over to lie down next to Link after it finished eating and drinking what Link had given it. This time, though, instead of simply lying down next to him, it rested its massive head in Link's lap. Cautiously, Link began stroking its head, and it closed its eyes, leaning into his hand.
"I should probably give you a name, shouldn't I?" Link murmured, enjoying the feel of the wolf's soft fur. "Since it seems like you're here to stay."
Link sat quietly for a while, thinking about it. He wasn't all that great at coming up with names—just look at the names of the horses he'd registered at the stables if you wanted proof of that.
"Shadow," he said finally. "I'll call you Shadow. How's that?"
Because he'd been following Link around like a shadow for the past few days. And his coloration, with the dark gray and white all mixed, kind of reminded Link of the way light filtered through a forest's canopy, bright spots dappling the ground among the dark shadows.
Shadow looked at him, tilting his head like he was considering the name. Then he licked Link's hand once, as if giving his assent, and lay back down again.
Link laughed. "Shadow it is, then."
A/N: Even though this isn't Wolf Link, I still wanted his name to be a reference to TP somehow. I could've gone with Twilight, but that felt a little too on the nose (plus I didn't want it to get mixed up with LinkedUniverse, where the Link from TP is often referred to as Twilight), so Shadow seemed like a decent choice. Let me know what you think!